eskwire

Very nice. How long are you fasting? I am currently doing OMAD, one meal a day, 23 hour fast every day. The longest extended fast I've done was 6 days. Fasting is helpful in a number of areas. To me, it's easier than fussing with food. Many people use food to tamp down uncomfortable feelings. It's a distraction from discomfort. Of course, it is key not to generate aversion to discomfort. To face it with awareness and equanimity. For those who use food dysfunctionally, it's like removing another abused substance from your life. You are sober in a sense and can grow from that place.

Returned from a 10 Day Vipassana Course. I've sat 3 courses and served one (cooking and cleaning for the meditators). This time, I fought boredom instead of pain. That is a much subtler and deadlier beast - it can make you quit meditating or going to retreats altogether. Because you get delusional and think you already know everything about it - there's nothing more to do or get. Total delusion and indicates lack of beginner's mind. Strong, ambitious people know they can get through pain. They do it all the time. Strong, ambitious people do not like being bored, though! This course was grindy. All about the work, remembering to come back to the work, and do it very correctly without added delusional bullshit. It was hard. And I didn't feel all happy and high at the end. I did feel wiser and humbled, though. Learned some hard lessons on this one. And was inspired to make this meme. If you have questions, hit me up.

Nah. The orange is strong. The green people are orange with nascent green, so the kind of green where they like hippie stuff because it's cool/hip/fashionable. I went to high school there and have lived there twice. I would absolutely never live there again. If you aren't rich, you might end up sharing a house with 5 strangers and lots of roommate drama. The CA hippies are in the north.

San Diego is orange.

@Mulky That is a good way to put it. Highly recommend moving away from Blue and Orange areas. You can organize a Green event, meet a few friends, but friendships are tenuous at best. Very shallow, easy to break. Friendships are for joy, not need. Blue and Orange places have festivals anyway, but the people are still the same. They are just partying.

I live in an intentional community in Washington with inexpensive rent. That's a super green situation. But also kind of a lucky situation. Washington and Oregon have many green pockets. CA has A LOT of Stage Orange, so be careful. I was born and raised in Southern California and would never move back.

No, please stop saying that for the love of god. ???

Yes, exactly! Thank you for understanding and contributing. ?

"You don't know what I know, you haven't seen what I've seen. Justification for making a circus of what many more humble people have come to feel and rejecting the teachings of others." It's ok to experience what other people already experienced and wrote down in books and Wikipedia. That's not playing it cool. It's part of the human experience. Attaching to being the MOST and the FIRST and the DEEPEST SO DEEP - this is delusion and intoxication. But whatever, do you. Guess you have to. You're all there is.

Asking @Leo Gura. Many of us on the forum have had enlightenment experiences - experiences of oneness, being alone, being one with god, even solipsism - so why the sudden drama about this? If this is truly a big breakthrough for him, I would be interested to see if this elevates his compassion level any or makes it worse.

Why is oneness way more radical and insane? What's with the drama?

I wrote a post about breaking my ankle and the resulting changes in my outlook on people. Some forum folks responded in a judgey, critical, unfeeling way without having read the post completely. This triggered me intensely. Sure, it was partially PMS, partially my actualized.org troll commenting and fanning the flames, partially that someone whom I admired hurt my feelings. But what part of myself was I reacting so intensely to? The part of myself that berates me no matter how hard I try or how well I do. The part of myself that doesn't listen to how I feel. My inner asshole who judges others and thinks everyone is lazy. In short, I was reacting to my toxic masculinity. I am a woman. There's a lot one could say about toxic masculinity imbedded deep in the psyche of an American female, but I've never done gender studies and you - the reader - prolly don't care. I grew up in a household whose ambiance was very, "Work harder, don't bother me with shit, stop having fun, and nobody cares about your feelings." My father was an alcoholic and my mother didn't want to be a mother. She was a career person. Maybe this is why I was so drawn to Leo's masculine, no-nonsense style. Between my family, the karate school in the South where I lived/worked recently, and listening to hundreds of hours of Leo's hyper masculine style...I have been steeped in masculinity and I think it's currently doing me more harm than good. As an experiment, I am leaving the forum and not listening to Leo's vids for six months or more. I'm not on here much anyway but I've heard 95% of Leo's vids and done the LP course. His voice has been ringing in my ears for 2.5 years. It's been helpful for some things but now I want to try opening myself up to nurturing, surrendering to all of my experiences and feelings. I will follow females like Emerald and work with female coaches, listen to Sade, relax and file my nails. Whatever! I am swinging my pendulum over to the side of femininity until I am recalibrated and balanced. We'll see if it helps. ❤

What works for me is "not breaking the chain." So, for example, I have a meditation habit of 20 minutes before work. If I am running late one day, I still do a meditation even if it's just 2 minutes because that stops me from "breaking the chain." This keeps momentum but gives room for life to happen.

Hilarious. And so true - I grew up in the desert and I have zero interest in ever feeling that again.

I have recently gotten into Bradshaw's work on the "inner child," which has been more immediately transformative than a lot of what I've dabbled in psychologically and spiritually. If you grew up in a dysfunctional family (absent parent, addict parent, emotional/physical/sexual abuse), I highly recommend you look into this realm of psychology. Quick background on my childhood: Alcoholic father who went to rehab and dominated it when I was 16 (so 16 years of total insanity in my home, proud of his recovery). Suicidal mother (an attempt every few years, stopped by a random intervening force she wasn't expecting each time). Major Traumatic Events: 1. Attempted sexual assault at age 10 by my father, who was so drunk I believe he thought I was my mother while napping in their bed. I fought him off and no one spoke of it again. The rest of the family doesn't know about it - I don't think he remembers it. 2. Father broke into our home with a shotgun and threatened to kill us all while separated from my mother. We ran to the neighbors' in the middle of the night. 3. Some physical violence events. 4. Mother's suicide attempts, hospitalizations, escape from hospital on Christmas. Daily Trauma in the Home: Having to be quiet and not-annoying, parental screaming, anger, crying mother, being blamed for parental discord and separations, etc etc. Usual chaos in an alcoholic home. Inner child work operates on the premise that you were not nurtured and provided for appropriately at your various developmental stages. The energy of need is trapped physically and emotionally. The loss must be re-experienced, grieved, and another healthy adult must provide the nourishment (you, now). Effects of a fucked up inner child are addictions, dysfunctional romantic relationships, lack of self worth, neuroses of all shapes and sizes. Healing Techniques: Looking at photos of yourself as a child, writing letters to and from yourself as a baby/child (using your non-dominant hand to write as your inner child), guided meditations, group work. I haven't done a lot of work yet. I have written to and from myself as a baby and a child. I have looked at pictures of myself and imagined holding myself. Two Experiences of Note: 1. I listened to a hypnosis session on "Letting Go of Past Relationships" that I have listened to several times before with no real benefit. This time, I listened to it and imagined myself as a baby doing the hypnosis instructions - my adult self held the baby in the imagery. I noticed instant results and no longer felt the pangs and desperation of wanting to reach out to an ex boyfriend I have struggled to get over for a year. 2. After this hypnosis, I simply imagined my adult self holding, playing with, and kissing my baby self. This is the trip report. I have never felt so completely consumed by the feeling of love. I did this for perhaps 2 hours because I did not want to stop. It felt so good - it was a feeling of simultaneously giving and receiving a gigantic reservoir of love. I am reading more about family dynamics in dysfunctional families. I have learned that I was what is called the "lost child" - this is the one who stays quiet, stays in the bedroom, daydreams to escape, focuses on something else in life like school, people pleases, doesn't ask for or express anything out of fear, and ends up in codependent relationships as an adult. I will continue my work in this realm because I have already experienced big shifts. I wonder where the fuck my therapist has been at all this time, not telling me about any of this, but recommending Byron Katie so I could further shove my needs and feelings off to the side - an already unhealthy manifestation in the "lost child." Again, if you grew up in a dysfunctional home, look into actual psychological healing through these methods in addition to your other work.

@PsiloPutty @luckieluuke Great. It's certainly worth it. Let me know how it goes! Another note - One thing that helped me through the 5th and 6th days when I kept wanting that segment to end so we could move on to the next activity (which was usually just more meditation, right?), I thought, "You have to just do this until you die. You have to pay attention until you die so just get over it - there's nothing else." I understood the gravity of learning meditation - coming out of delusion - and surrender.

Hey, forum! I am so tired right now. Been up since 4, going hard. I'm waiting on some food in the oven to use for my weekly meal prep. I got home from the course around 2 this afternoon. My second ten day Vipassana course came just at the right time - when I was drained of compassion, tolerance, and patience for others - due to some personal hardships and slacking on my meditation. This was reviving. Some Notes: It's a completely different experience than the first one. The program is the same - you are not the same. Some people seemed to have an aversion to the elements of the program that smacked of Stage Blue for them - keeping sila (morality), taking orders, having rules about bedtimes etc. Vipassana is not a Stage Blue practice IMO, but there is some language that would really turn people off who are beyond that stage. My take on it is that our infinite universe is so infinite, it includes some rules and regulations that are universally(?) helpful. My first course was super dramatic. Lots of crying, ups and downs, shock and awe at my "powers" lalalala. This one was more mature. I was grounded and focused on making sure I did the technique correctly - without delusion. This was deeply gratifying and fulfilling, though not exciting like the first. The sense of community I get from Vipassana is stronger than what I've gotten anywhere else. I still talk to people I met at the first one at least a couple times a week - and I made a new promising friend at this one. I noticed myself gaining a real curiosity about the theory of Vipassana on this course and purchased many books, which I did not bother investing in before. This interest in theory seems to come in waves, perhaps when you are ready. Leo's work was very helpful in understanding the "point" of all of it. Some people struggled with doing something so strenuous and the "end goal" not making any sense to them - especially if they have no experience of "no mind." This makes some people leave, give up their home practice, or just never come back. It was great. I am so grateful and happy to have gone again - and I have a lot of work to do.

1.) Profile pics and some people have posted pictures of themselves in threads. 2.) You don't have to give opinions and advice to let someone know you are listening. There are other types of sentences in the world. 3.) That's dismissing my point (that this place isn't necessarily much better than other places where you could talk to people - there are still dirtbags on here). But thanks for not listening and giving me unsolicited advice.

I thought I would find community here. My white whale - and something that increasingly seems to be illusory and unnecessary. I most likely won't come back anymore, except to see if @Leo Gura will come to Seattle (pleeeeease?) - if IRL tour dates happen. This forum is more or less like every other place where humans congregate. Good looking and vapid females get a lot of attention, followers, and supportive words. Most people don't listen - they just hop in with opinions and advice, that are often unsolicited. Not every post is a "please give advice" post, guys. Some dudes are skeevy. A lot of time is wasted. People say they will do xyz and then don't do shit. Maybe I'll just join a hiking club. At least fewer of those people will be suicidal.

I go places by myself often. Dinner, movies, whatever. I used to go to bars/clubs alone when I drank. I just made friends there. In order to be alone, you need to be in your house or car? Sounds ridiculous when you put it that way, right?

On a scale from zero to ten - zero is incapable and ten is quite capable -How capable are you of embracing life without friends and booze, even if it seems empty at first by comparison?

Yes.

You believe you are making improvements in your life but alcohol is stifling how far those improvements could go. What would be some benefits to drinking less frequently or not at all?

@Xin It's wonderful you are doing this. What changes are you seeing so far? If you are looking for something radical, 20 minutes is not enough. People meditate for many hours. If you are looking to be a bit more equanimous, even-minded, calm, focused - then you have a great practice going. Congratulations!?

^Yes, agreed.